open access & scholarly communications

"open access is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles coupled with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment" (sparc, 2022)

resources:

• the 2001 budapest open access initiative, a document produced as the culmination of a landmark conference, represents a seminal moment in oa history. 

• the scholarly publishing and academic resources coalition (sparc) is a globally-influential oa organization that offers a rich array of online resources. 

• for a quick and lively introduction to oa, see this animated introduction to oa video from 2012 by phd comics, narrated in part by nick shockey of sparc. 

these are generalizations, policies may vary publisher to publisher.

publication agreements with journal publishers usually transfer the copyright of an article to that publisher.  the sparc canadian author addendum is a pdf file that an author can sign and attach to a publisher's agreement.

the agreement states that the author retains certain non-commerical rights such as the right to make copies for a class or to post the article on a personal or institutional web site while transferring the copyright to the publisher.

directory of open access journals (doaj) is the largest collection of open access journals.  

some publishers also maintain lists of their own open access journals such as:

• sciencedirect list of open access journals
• wiley
• sage which features sage open, a multidisciplinary oa journal
• taylor and francis/routledge

the directory of open access repositories (opendoar) maintains a list of academic repositories.  you can search by repository name, institution or by searching the contents (i.e. article title or author name).

the canadian association of research libraries maintains a list of canadian academic repositories.

simmons maintains a list of discipline-based repositories and you may also find repositories on individual university's websites.